Widely grown all over the Mediterranean, where they've been cultivated since biblical times…

6-8 large pitta breads

Method

Roughly chop the beetroot. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Put these in a food processor with the garlic, coriander, lemon juice and olive oil. Blitz until fairly smooth. Taste and add freshly ground pepper, and salt if you wish.

Divide the salad leaves between 6 plates. Spoon a little houmous onto each plate and scatter with a few olives. Drizzle a little oil over the leaves and sprinkle with a little black pepper, and salt, if you wish.

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Comments, questions and tips

Comments (9)

eclectikat15th Jan, 2016

5

Made this with fresh beetroots which I boiled slowly so that they became really concentrated in flavour. I think this is key to making this really tasty. There aren't a lot of ingredients to make sure you use good ones. I added the garlic, chickpeas and a generous handful of coriander leaves and stalks, the juice of one lemon and a glug of olive oil to the beetroot before blending with a stick blender, tasting and then deciding whether to add more lemon or oil. It didn't need any more of either so I'd suggest doing it this way, to taste, rather than putting all the lemon juice in at first. I sprinkled a bit of dukkah/za'atar over it to serve on a bed of rocket. Delicious. I'll be making this again and again.

I used vac-packed cooked beetroot. This was easy to make and tasty, albeit not outstanding. As others have said, consistency was rather sloppy - next time would probably add oil and lemon juice gradually rather than all at once. Colour was not rich like in the photo but more of a deep dusky pink!

This has gone down a storm with friends of all ages - I made it for a friend's party and her son was distraught when he got back from work next day and heard I taken what little was left home! He came round to retrieve it ...I had no chickpeas last time I made it but I did have a tub of hummus - it was different but still delicious.

I cheated and it came out beautifully. I followed the recipe but used one can of sliced beetroot rather than fresh, chucked in an additional teaspoon of cumin powder, some coriander powder (as well as fresh) and splashed in some water so I could cut down on the amount of olive oil. One minute in the food processor and tah-dah! Yummy.

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